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History & Historiography Under/Of Augustus

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History & Historiography Under/Of Augustus MMM History & Historiography under/of Augustus 1. Nicolaus of Damascus: preface Men gave him this name in view of his claim to honour; and, scattered over islands and continents, through city and tribe, they revere him by building temples and by sacrificing to him, thus requiting him for his great virtue and acts of kindness toward themselves. For this man, having attained preeminent power and discretion, ruled over the greatest number of people within the memory of man, established the farthest boundaries for the Roman Empire… (FGrH F125) 2. Nicolaus of Damascus To set forth the full power of this man's intelligence and virtue, both in the administration which he exercised at Rome and in the conduct of great wars both domestic and foreign, is a subject for competition in speech and essay, that men may win renown by treating it well. (FGrH F126) 3. Nicolaus of Damascus: re-writing history (28) After the great Caesar's death and burial, his friends counselled Octavian to cultivate Antonius' friendship, and put him in charge of his interests . He again approached Antonius with a number of his friends, requesting that permission be given for the throne and wreath to be set up in his father's honor. Antonius made the same threat as before, if he did not drop that proposal and keep quiet. Octavian withdrew and made no opposition to the veto of the consul. When he entered the theater, however, the people applauded him loudly… From that day Antonius was manifestly still more ill disposed toward Octavian, who stood in the way of the people's zeal for him. … So Octavian was the only one left to avenge his father, for Antonius let the whole matter pass, and was even in favor of an amnesty for the assassins. … But for the present fearing for his life, knowing Antonius' attitude toward him and yet quite unable to change it, Octavian remained at home and awaited his opportunity. (30) When Octavian went home after his reconciliation with Antonius, the latter, left to himself, became provoked again at seeing the good will of all the soldiers inclining very much toward Octavian. … Octavian, however, actually believing that the reconciliation between them was in good faith, went every day to Antonius' house, as was quite proper, since Antonius was consul and an older man and a friend of his father's; and he paid him every other respect according to his promise until Antonius did him a second wrong in the following manner 4. Diodorus’ universal history I shall undertake to give a full account of all the events which have been handed down to memory and took place in the known regions of the inhabited world. (Diod. Sic. 1.9.1) 5. Moral history In general, then, it is because of that commemoration of goodly deeds which history accords men that some of them have been induced to become the founders of cities, that others have been led to introduce laws which encompass man's social life with security, and that many have aspired to discover new sciences and arts in order to benefit the race of men. And since complete happiness can be attained only through the combination of all these activities, the foremost praise must be awarded to that which more than any other thing is the cause of them, that is, to history. For we must look upon it as constituting the guardian of the high achievements of illustrious men, the witness which testifies to the evil deeds of the wicked, and the benefactor of the entire human race. (Diod. Sic. 2.1) MMM 6. Universal history as product of empire As for the resources which have availed us in this undertaking, they have been, first and foremost, that enthusiasm for the work which enables every man to bring to completion the task which seems impossible, and, in the second place, the abundant supply which Rome affords of the materials pertaining to the proposed study. 3 For the supremacy of this city, a supremacy so powerful that it extends to the bounds of the inhabited world, has provided us in the course of our long residence there with copious resources in the most accessible form. (Diod. Sic. 1.4.2-3) 7. Pompeius Trogus AFTER many Romans, men even of consular dignity, had committed the acts of their countrymen to writing in Greek, a foreign language, Trogus Pompeius, a man of eloquence equal to that of the ancients, whether prompted by a desire to emulate their glory, or charmed by the variety and novelty of the undertaking, composed the history of Greece, and of the whole world, in the Latin tongue, in order that, as our actions might he read in Greek, so those of the Greeks might be read in our language; attempting a work that demanded extraordinary resolution and labour. For when, to most authors who write the history only of particular princes or nations, their task appears an affair of arduous effort, must not Trogus Pompeius, in attempting the whole world, seem to have acted with a boldness like that of Hercules, since in his books are contained the actions of all ages, monarchs, nations, and people? (Pompeius Trogus, Preface) 8. Dionysius’ goal By this means I engage to prove that they [the Romans] were Greeks and came together from nations not the smallest nor least considerable. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities I.5.1) 9. History according to Dionysius That I have indeed made choice of a subject noble, lofty and useful to many will not, I think, require any lengthy argument, at least for those who are not utterly unacquainted with universal history. For if anyone turns his attention to the successive supremacies both of cities and of nations, as accounts of them have been handed down from times past, and then, surveying them severally and comparing them together, wishes to determine which of them obtained the widest dominion and both in peace and war performed the most brilliant achievements, he will find that the supremacy of the Romans has far surpassed all those that are recorded from earlier times, not only in the extent of its dominion and in the splendor of its achievements — which no account has as yet worthily celebrated — but also in the length of time during which it has endured down to our day. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities I.2.1) 10. Reasons for Rome’s greatness For to this day almost all the Greeks are ignorant of the early history of Rome and the great majority of them have been imposed upon by sundry false opinions grounded upon stories which chance has brought to their ears and led to believe that, having come upon various vagabonds without house or home and barbarians, and even those not free men, as her founders, she in the course of time arrived at world domination, and this not through reverence for the gods and justice and every other virtue, but through some chance and the injustice of Fortune, which inconsiderately showers her greatest favours upon the most undeserving. And indeed the more malicious are wont to rail openly at Fortune for freely bestowing on the basest of barbarians the blessings of the Greeks. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities I.4.2) MMM 11. Cremutius Cordus on Livy I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship. (Tac, Ann, 4.3.4) 12. Seneca on Livy As it is, the remark may be applied to the winds which was commonly made regarding Julius Caesar, as recorded by Titus Livius (Livy): it was doubtful whether his birth was a blessing or a curse to the state. (Seneca, QN 5.18.4) 13. Livy: opening I, on the other hand, shall look for a further reward of my labours in being able to close my eyes to the evils which our generation has witnessed for so many years; so long, at least, as I am devoting all my thoughts to retracing those pristine records, free from all the anxiety which can disturb the historian of his own times even if it cannot warp him from the truth... Now, if any nation ought to be allowed to claim a sacred origin and point back to a divine paternity that nation is Rome. For such is her renown in war that when she chooses to represent Mars as her own and her founder's father, the nations of the world accept the statement with the same equanimity with which they accept her dominion... The subjects to which I would ask each of my readers to devote his earnest attention are these-the life and morals of the community; the men and the qualities by which through domestic policy and foreign war dominion was won and extended. Then as the standard of morality gradually lowers, let him follow the decay of the national character, observing how at first it slowly sinks, then slips downward more and more rapidly, and finally begins to plunge into headlong ruin, until he reaches these days, in which we can bear neither our diseases nor their remedies... We should much prefer to start with favourable omens, and if we could have adopted the poets' custom, it would have been much pleasanter to commence with prayers and supplications to gods and goddesses that they would grant a favourable and successful issue to the great task before us...
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